quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

xp - screwed in terms of what?

I haven't met a ton of med folks, but as a side note I will say that the bulk of the ones I've met seem in some part motivated by the fact that there is this incredibly long, incredibly hard thing you can do, at the end of which you will have this amazing ability to heal the sick -- no matter where you are or what's happening, you will have in your head this thing that's one of the single most important human skills there is.

yeah but can they *promote justice*

you are pretty much screwed if you do not go to a top 20 school

i'm guessing whoever said this was in the same category of law students who hold themselves to ridiculous standards. imo/ime it's totally wrong.

― permanent response lopp (harbl), Thursday, 27 August 2009 00:19 (6 minutes ago)

You're probably in a far better position than I am to evaluate this. I think you're right that it's an exaggeration, but I also think it's at least a big gamble to go to a non-top-20 school for the full $40-some-odd-thousand-dollars a year plus living expenses entirely on loans, especially if you don't have a very clear, specific career track you want (e.g. you're pretty sure you want to do a certain kind of public interest and have done the math with debt size vs. whatever loan forgiveness program applies).

I only have anecdotal evidence, but I've heard plenty of stories in the last couple years about people graduating "good" non-top-20 law schools with at least decent grades and no job.

the fact that the supply of lawyers is continually going ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ and the cost of law school is continually going ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ makes me think that that particular statement is only going to get more and more true over time

And the recession is actually driving more people into law school -- classes are oversubscribed this year.

yeah, it's true you have to get much better grades, etc. at a lower-ranked school but "screwed" is an idea used to exploit insecure potential applicants xxp

I feel like if anyone is exploiting insecure potential applicants, it's the tier 3 and 4 law schools

i dunno, thinking about that

i mean, they all are, for sure. but i was thinking more of what was upthread about mega-overachievers being disappointed than just plain "this is my ticket to success" stuff, which is also there, and is also bad.

so glad I decided not to apply this year, and am looking at lol humanities phd programs instead

ah yeah what you said at 7:34 probably xxp

(just for the record I really didn't mean to suggest anyone's motives anywhere are "bad" -- only that it's super-interesting to me the way different pursuits sometimes self-select for people with wildly different expectations of themselves and the world)

hey, if I have the opportunity and mental capacity to do well at a top law school

I knew someone who applied (and got in) to a bunch of tier 1 law schools last year, and I once grilled her about why she wanted to go to law school, and after hemming ad hawing basically ended up saying "well I think law school would best take advantage of my skillset."

I also pointed her to the ILX thread about law school being a pit of hell and she said "uhh, what is this place"

people who go to law school because they can't figure out anything else to do for an office job are basically terrible

(having thought about it at a couple of points in life and been lucky enough to get to do something completely different)

maybe it's just because there's not enough exposure in your early twenties to what you can do in a different lane - law school is just so generic "I'm gifted but more like with words not math or science so much"

additionally from personal experience all the engineering/hard sciences oriented kids I hung out with were really really really smart, if I had spent more time around the middle of the bell curve engineering students I might not have been so intimidated by everything? Then again, I purposefully avoided math whenever the opportunity presented itself at that age

in talking to my friends who went to law school, i think i would have actually really liked the education--as a "gifted w/words not numbers" guy--but the thought of actually being a lawyer is awful.

what is the lawyer equivalent for science majors/phds?

My physics Ph.D. friends were all pushed to be quants; I figure the bottom's also fallen out of that.

For biology majors, PA school.

i guess it's patent law still?

i no longer get cold-called by quant recruiters

to be fair about motivations, there are obviously still plenty of people who go to law school because they're actually really interested in the law and how things work; or because they're passionate about government or human right or something and want to use the degree to make a positive contribution to those areas; or because they're just inclined toward the kind of logic and thinking involved in law. but yes, there'd definitely seem to be a higher proportion of people who see it as a means to an end than you'd find in some other fields.

I work at a hoity toity law firm and I can say with certainty that 95% of people we take in are from top 20 schools. Its kinda retarded but thats just how we do things. The other 5% are from renowned local schools.

We have one guy whose a partner here who went to a super shitty lower tier school and hes basically the great white hope for those who did the same, but the odds of making it like he did are slim to none because hes basically insane.

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/01/18/williamshatner_narrowweb__300x436,0.jpg

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/health/views/04greet.html

As the world braces for a second wave of the swine flu that broke out in the spring and resulted in the deaths of more than 2,100 people worldwide, the disease is altering long-established patterns of everyday greeting. Handshakes have been cut short, kisses aborted. Warm embraces have been supplanted by curt pats on the back.

Annual deaths from malaria: 2.7 million

Tracer Hand I think you need a hug, but of course now I don't dare.

Plus I'm too busy bracing for a second wave of Killer Pig Fever

aborted kisses ;_;

How can you make ironic references to a 19th Century disease at a time like this?

what this thread needs right about now is some gabbneb.

style section article on Sym's had plenty of contempt but not enough agony for this thread

Seinfeld needs to work up some material celebrating the death of the kiss hello and get back out on the road

NYT continuing to fuel the obsession with Harvard: http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/harvarddean/?hp

Love this guy:

Dean Fitzsimmons,

My son was born last week. It is my son’s goal to go to an Ivy League school. He had near perfect APGAR scores. Should we include this on his 2026 application?
— Ken

My daughter is a good and hard-working student but just outside the top 10% of her small class in a well-respected private school. She’s the president of the school’s community service club and is the captain of the field hockey team. Does she have any chance of getting into Harvard?

How about if I donate $50 million?

— Marshall

haha

I was graduated from a public high school with a 2.3 GPA, no extracurriculars or public service to speak of, and have a Harvard degree. I spit on your dreams, Marshall and Ken.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/complaint-box-counter-culture/

I'd probably be a dick to this guy, too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/fashion/27Coco.html?_r=1

Ms. Saleh of the Bedford produce shop had a different take. “You see the weirdest stuff around here, so just walking around with a coconut ...” she said, shrugging, “what’s a coconut?”

It's an article!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/tracerhand/Picture1-2.jpg

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/world/asia/28jakarta.html

yeah the wife and I just talked about that article at lunch. I was kinda wondering if Europe/NA will see more domestic servants in the "new" economy. My dad's from Latin America and while in USA dollars their wealth there wasn't huge, they still had a live-in domestic servant; and my family that's there still is the same way. And my brother worked in India a few years ago and his company provided a live-in domestic servant there too.

That coconut drink sounds delicious!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/fashion/04ivy.html?_r=1&ref=fashion

Michal Albanese, a sales executive for a fashion trade show who graduated from Brown in 1999, confirmed that the list did breed insecurity in some at the group’s last party. A couple of guests were called out for not having gone to Ivy Plus universities, she said, and one gentleman began rattling off his other accomplishments.

“The guy went to, like, Illinois,” she said, trying to recall the college.

“I don’t remember,” she added. ”But his friend kept saying, ‘You’re not even a plus.’ ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/opinion/05adouthat.html?_r=2&hp

where to start

god i just read that. where is his brain.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/nyregion/11twins.html?hp

not really feeling all that bad for a bartender making $40k a year right now tbh

sorry, 24-yr-old bartender